Copyright

On November 2nd, which has been my favorite class thus far, we learned so much about copyright including cool facts. We started class by learning the background such as the origins of property which you turn it alienable and turns into a good. Compared to the justification of property which are property rights in our tradition that are associated with labor. The notion of property has changed overtime. For example, back in the day if you had an acre of land and you didn’t do anything with it, your neighbor could begin growing corn on it without problems, but today it does not work like that and people take their property much more seriously. Another thing that is taken very seriously is the idea of corporation, which is a fictitious person created in law, so it has person status. This limits liability to actual people. Other things that can be considered property is even an idea. An idea is intellectual property, which is protected by patents, trademarks, and copy right. If not copyrighted it’s in the “public domain” and anyone can use it. The first copy right goes back to 1790 and a fun fact is that copy right has an expiration. What interested me so much was how Ritchie Vallens did a cover of La Bamba and made it famous and he did not know how to speak Spanish. His grandmother wrote down the lyrics for him and he created his own version since it was not copyrighted and made it a sensation that you can hear in movies. I was so fascinated by this lecture I went home to tell my dad about Ritchie Vallens not knowing Spanish but making La Bamba a huge hit and he told me I knew exactly who Ritchie Vallens was because he was one of the men killed alongside Buddy Holly (who I grew up listening to because of my father). We got to talking more about how Michael Jackson owned all The Beatles songs, which is just plain weird like why did he feel the need? And how important copy right really is. In class it was discussed in a few years Mickey Mouse will no longer be under copy right and it will have been expired, so it leaves me to wonder is it then up for grabs in the public domain, or will Disney find some sort of loop hole to claim it again. The most mind blowing part of class that made me realize how important copy right is was how Disney made nearly $8,000,000 off Frozen, which was a story written in the 1700’s. I now don’t blame people for thinking Disney is the money hungry enemy. This class was just too good and I loved being able to discuss it with my dad.

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